Adaptation In A New Team - Essay Example

Download file to see previous pages... In the early process of assimilation, the stranger may be looked upon as suspect as he does not subscribe to the peculiarities and history of which the group has been formed even if that history is accessible to him. It is because such peculiarities and history is not an integral part of the stranger’s personal background that he is having a hard time interpreting them according to the interpretive language that he knows. This difference in cultural pattern, environment, and even language is the barrier that excludes the approaching stranger. Until such time when the stranger fully grasped the cultural pattern of this new group can he only adapt to this new cultural pattern and be accepted as part of the group. The effort of the stranger, however, to understand the peculiarities and orientation of the new group is not a guarantee that he will be accepted in the group nor will he continue to find desirability to become a part of such group. The process of being taken as one of the members of the in-group can be tough and prone to misunderstanding. While the in-group may think of their gesture as a provision of social shelter to the stranger, the stranger does not take it in this manner as he will find the new group incoherent and a problematic situation where he is having a hard time understanding and coping. But when the time comes that the stranger has already understood the nuances of the group and that it is no longer a point of inquiry, then the stranger is no longer a stranger but a part of the inner group.

I. Analysis of the article 400-500
The article primarily discussed that we as individuals, view the world from our own perspective and we are the center of it. Such perspective is not even coherent, consistent nor clear. We held such views not because we are being critical of the world around us but rather as a convenient way to adapt to the cultural pattern and environment imposed on us by our ancestors, society, government, and authority. The same perspective applies to a group where it also interprets the world according to on how the group sees it. Being such, groups eventually develop its own unique cultural pattern that an outsider or stranger may find difficult to adapt but will also eventually understand and being such, will no longer be a stranger but become a part of the group.
This analysis, however, is a simplistic assessment on how groups assimilate its new members. It readily assumed that a dominant group will become an automatic interest to a minority which is the stranger and such dominant group will become a subject of interest or inquiry to the stranger. It also painted a subtle adversarial nature of an ingroup towards an outsider who has to understand its own cultural pattern to be accepted and can be reproached if the newcomer failed to do so. Personally, it sounds so high school and nowhere in the article can be found that in-groups can also be welcoming to a stranger. In the journal, the process which the stranger has to go through just to be accepted in a group has the subtlety of baptism by fire. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More